


Those Real Folk Heroes

by ballantine



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dubious Ethics, Espionage, F/M, Gen, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Mission Fic, Post-World War II, SHIELD The Early Years, Siberia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:16:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballantine/pseuds/ballantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh, I think I'll come along, I've been wanting to get out of the office for a while.” He said it casually, like they were going up to the Hamptons and not deep into the Soviet hinterland. </p><p>“Better stop trimming that mustache now,” Peggy advised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please be aware that this story was written and posted before Agent Carter premiered, so the timeline and some details may not match up with canon.

I.

_Two unidentified operatives have released the subjects and destroyed the holding cells. It does not appear that ZS-6214 was their intended target, but we are moving it to a new secure location just in case. I recommend that Phase II testing continue as planned._

… _The locals are saying these charlatans were unheralded Heroes of the Soviet Union. Already, tales of their supposed deeds during the Great Patriotic War have spread throughout the city. This morning they were known to have saved hundreds of children during the Battle of Moscow; I'm sure by tomorrow they'll have single-handedly fed Leningrad through the siege._

_Fedya, I beg you: convince them to let me come back West. Or send me to the Ukraine, I don't care, just get me the hell out of Siberia._

\- Intercepted Soviet wire, Irkutsk-Moscow, 2 December 1946, decrypted and translated: Agent Carter

 

II.

“Siberia,” Howard says, staring darkly at the bleak landscape out the window of the train carriage.

“Mm,” Peggy adjusts the bundled coat she's been using as a pillow, “Russia's heartland, they say.”

“Siberia in _winter_.”

“It's not winter yet,” she says.

“The leaves are gone back home, so it's winter.” He turns to look at her, “You know, I'm not really supposed to go into the field, remember? I'm an _ideas_ man, Peggy, an engineer. I can't afford to get frostbite, my hands are actually valuable – insured, in fact, for over $20,000 each.”

“So you're saying you can, in fact, afford to get frostbite?”

“Why am I here again?”

Howard is there because, nominally, she had requested it. In the last meeting before the mission she'd mentioned that if their suspicions about the lab were correct, she might need a specialist to interpret the data.

The words were barely out of her mouth before Howard had said, “Oh, I think I'll come along, I've been wanting to get out of the office for a while.” He'd said it with a chummy smile, like they were going up to the Hamptons instead of deep into the Soviet hinterland.

“Better stop trimming that mustache now,” Peggy had advised.

He _had_ stopped trimming, and now she is enjoying the dubious delights of his Russified visage. His thick dark mustache really moved an astonishing amount when he was off on one of his nonsense tangents – which he was frequently, of course, because he's Howard, and he can't seem to let one blessed mile of the Trans-Siberian trip pass in peace.

She doesn't understand why he is putting up this front of the mincing, wincing desk man; it wasn't like she didn't remember that he'd flown a plane across active enemy lines for an unauthorized rescue mission. Back then, he'd even had enough nerve left over to torment Steve with ridiculous fondue invitations, so she isn't buying his delicate act now – and frankly her patience is starting to wear thin.

Miraculously, Howard chooses this moment to fall silent. He's always had an uncanny read on her mood; it was one of his few redeeming qualities.

She enjoys the quiet for a little while, but she finds herself occasionally glancing over at her companion and – she really can't help it – smiling.

Eventually he heaves a heavy sigh through his nose, straight past his impressive facial hair, and asks, “What? What is it?”

She can't hold it in any longer: “It's just – well, you look a bit like Stalin.”

That sets him off again.

 

III.

The whole business started, as it so often does in espionage circles, with a rumor and not a little resentment between ex-colleagues. Howard shouldn't be surprised that Zola, a scientist with a distinctly problematic resume, would resort to professional backstabbing, but he is – Howard's a gentleman like that.

They were in a meeting – they were _always_ in a meeting of some kind, Howard never would have helped create S.H.I.E.L.D. if he'd known just how many damned meetings were going to be involved – and going over a data analysis that produced more questions than it did answers.

“There are signs that the Soviet intelligence apparatus is absorbing some of the splinter cells from Hydra, and, _surprise_ , it's leading to some nasty business.” Howard swivels his chair and waves at the large map on the conference room wall. The map has fifty pegs in ten different colors to assist them in tracking the movements of other intelligence networks.

Dooley folds his hands on top of the table and says, “Dr. Zola has confirmed that at least one of the identified recruits is a former colleague of his, Dr. Gregor Zupan.” Howard doesn't look over to where Peggy is likely sitting with a look of restrained contempt on her face; she hadn't agreed with the decision to recruit Zola and was still pretty sore over it. “He apparently specializes in neural reconditioning. Brainwashing, in other words, but with a level of sophistication we've never seen before. From what we can tell, he's been working on new equipment and testing it on the locals.”

Howard says, “Guy sounds like a real piece of work.”

“Are we looking to recruit him too?” Peggy asks in her most impassive tone.

 _See_? Sore.

Dooley, like any good intelligence chief, has the moral compunction of an advertising executive about to close a deal and doesn't so much as blink at Peggy's insinuation. “We need an agent to infiltrate, retrieve what data they can, and then dismantle the operation. Carter, you know Russian, so you've got the assignment.”

Howard says, “Russian? Where is this Zupan fellow currently based?”

Dooley says, “Irkutsk.”

Howard peers again at the map's scattering of pegs, “Where the _hell_ is Irkutsk?”

 

IV.

“Siberia,” Howard says, looking out the window at the passing scenery.

“Mm,” Peggy says from the other seat, “Russia's heartland, they say.”

They've been traveling with what feels like forever: a 15-hour flight to an airfield on the Chinese side of Manzhouli, where they met a contact to exchange one set of forged documents with another and sleep, then they stole aboard a Trans-Manchurian train – which had to have been simultaneously the most tense and intensely boring ride of Howard's life thus far. Disembarked at Chita, changed up documents again, and finally they boarded the Trans-Siberian under the names Anton and Margarita Turov.

The enormity of Russia is a blunt penetrating force on the mind when one is put on a five-day train ride over unoccupied steppe and through unoccupied snowforest and across mostly unoccupied countryside. Howard was beginning to forget what colors looked like; everything was just white on grey except for the stark black of the train moving through it all.

With nothing much to look at outside, Howard spends the time sketching out designs that will inevitably have to be destroyed, sleeping, and trying to engage Peggy in quiet discussion over anything that might get a rise out of her.

They're three days on the train before Howard has to put his crash course in Russian to the test by shooing a disgruntled senile passenger out of the compartment so they can be alone once more.

Peggy rounds on him with wide eyes as soon as the compartment door is closed. “What kind of accent do you call that?” She whispers furiously. “You didn't sound _nearly_ that bad back in New York.”

Howard sits down again and folds his arms, “I'm sorry, Professor Higgins, is my enunciation not up to par?”

She pauses, startled into amusement. “...Are you casting yourself as Wendy Hiller?”

“ _Hiller_?” Howard is outraged, “I don't merit a Gertrude Lawrence?”

Another pause, and Howard looks at her, “Oh, Peggy, come on. At the Barrymore last year? No, not one for theater?”

Peggy gives him a severe look, “I was a _little_ preoccupied last year.”

“Uh huh.” Only Peggy Carter would categorize the end of a war, months of grieving, and upstaging the incompetent good old boys from the SSR home office as _preoccupied_. The woman has a gift for understatement.

Peggy sits back and crosses her legs primly. “In fact, I've been a bit busy for a few years now.”

“You know, Carter, everyone should take time to relax now and again.”

“Is _that_ what you Americans were doing before '41?”

Howard hums thoughtfully, tapping his lips before snapping and pointing at her, “Sending all that aide your way while maintaining my company's public cover of noninvolvement _was_ tiring business – ”

“Howard,” Peggy says. “Why did you come on this mission?”

She is giving him that look again, the one she usually follows up with a shake of her head and a departure through the nearest door. Of all the possible people she could have ended up with in a train compartment, the looks says, he is neither who she would have expected nor picked.

It's okay, he wouldn't have picked him either.

He doesn't respond at first, thinking about the answers he could give. He could tell her about the bulletin he receives every two weeks from some of his old colleagues from Los Alamos. He doesn't know how much she keeps up with the news about – about the bomb, about the debate. He receives his bulletin, and reads it, and feels just sort of baffled at the naivety on display, the frantic hair-pulling of intelligent people thinking they can reign in what's been unleashed through – what? Rational arguments and good intentions?

Howard's got a thick shard of green glass in his bottom desk drawer to remind himself why he's throwing his lot in with S.H.I.E.L.D. He takes it out sometimes after everyone else has left and looks at it.

The silence stretches and eventually becomes too long to interrupt without some sort of uncomfortable display, so instead he leans his head back against the seat and closes his eyes for a nap.

–

Howard has an instinctual irreverence for the military that had been shared by many of the civilians in the SSR – not out of any genuine disrespect but merely a recognition that all the salutes and yessir-ing felt a bit silly. But _Peggy_ – the former SAS officer with her starched collars and ironrod spine – she gave all the appearances of respect with little of the underlying deference.

She never once slipped up in her duties or the proper protocols of rank, and until Steve's impromptu rescue mission of the 107th, Howard had bought the act hook, line, and sinker. Apparently she'd been saving it all up for the moment she'd needed to disobey.

It was one of the reasons he'd fought to bring her on at S.H.I.E.L.D.; they needed people who would see the bigger picture, who wouldn't just fall into line as company men. He just hopes it doesn't backfire on him when the time comes to make certain decisions on this mission.

–

Peggy comes back into the compartment and tells Howard that they're only a few hours away from Irkutsk. Howard feels like he imagines one who is near ending a long fast feels: excited, ravenous, and a little light-headed.

“Tell me about Irkutsk again,” he says, already fantasizing about what it will feel like to step off this damned train. He wonders if he'll dream about the bumping sway of the compartment for years to come.

Their intelligence on the Soviets is minimal; they lost a lot of network viability when the OSS and SSR were dissolved. So Peggy's knowledge on the surely dazzling metropolis of Irkutsk apparently just consists of: it was insulated from the worst of the war, and it's an industrial city that produced aircraft for the Soviet Air Defense.

“So think Manchester or maybe... Pittsburgh,” she says.

“Pittsburgh?” Howard says, euphoria fading a little.

–

The first real sight of Irkutsk greeting them once they've disembarked and trudged past the squat station building is a tall cathedral with golden domes that looks older than any building Howard's seen in the States, venerable with the years and events its withstood. It tops a wide avenue lined with grand brick buildings and colorful facades.

Howard stares down the street and turns to Peggy, “Pittsburgh?”

Peggy was surveying the scene with unrepentant and businesslike disinterest. “The briefing only included relevant details. I guess architecture didn't make the cut.”

They start walking.

 

V.

They rent a room in a less grand part of town. It's sparsely furnished with a bed, bedside table, and a chair in the corner. The only lighting comes by way of a small kerosene lantern, but at least the room is dry and warmer than outside. Howard shrugs off his coat and sits down on the bed. Peggy looks out the window for a long moment before tugging the curtain tightly closed.

They sit quietly for a while before Howard's brain starts to nag at him – it's different, being in a room. Howard hasn't talked to anyone except Peggy for over a week, if you don't count the man on the train (and Howard doesn't), but the train compartment had been porous, public in a way that this room most definitely is not.

The thing about Peggy is that she has never even referenced – hell, never _reacted_ to the possibility of something between them, it was so far from her thoughts. And despite his teasing, he's never seriously thought about it himself, really. It wasn't in the cards for them, he's always known that. Hell, it was _because_ of that that he could enjoy teasing her so much.

Howard knows many of the others think her a little cold (and maybe one night around drinks Thompson had made a joke about how the frigid Agent Carter had lost her flame to the ice, and Howard's far from white knight material but at that moment, three sheets to the wind and remembering a smiling Peggy in a red dress and poor Steve still all skinny kid between those big shoulders, well maybe Howard had tried to smash a bottle over Thompson's head, slurring obscenities about cowards who worked the office back home daring to talk about the war and _goddamn national heroes_ and then he was thrown out and none of them could ever go back to that particular club) and.

And anyway, she's not cold.

It's her voice that does it, that cut-glass accent that can chill you where you stand. What dumb bastards like Thompson will never hear is when she's happy or amused and the ice in her voice thaws, spreads and warms, heavy and rich.

So he's never seriously thought about it himself, really, but sometimes in the quiet moments it sneaks up on him, infiltrates his mind when he isn't paying proper attention. It hasn't been so long since the war that he can't look across this shabby room at Peggy and imagine it is one of the SSR's more temporary layovers, like they have a few hours before another crisis is due and nothing but the peculiar boredom that is downtime in war to fill them. They'd gotten good at those layovers, during the war.

“...Peggy?”

“Mm?” She doesn't look over, too busy peering instead at a loose thread in the shoulder of her heavy coat.

“I'm bored.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Howard. We've got at least three days here, you can't start this up now.”

He nods and waits for her to go back to her coat, pulling out the small bottle of vodka he'd bought at a station stop the day before. He takes a drink, then thoughtfully lowers the bottle, eyes still on her.

“ _A..._ woman goes on a mission,” he tells her.

Peggy pauses and looks over at him with a slightly disbelieving look that's also a smile. He meets her gaze and waits patiently. She sighs and replies dutifully:

“ _But_ unfortunately she has a – ”

“ – Companion,” he breaks in, having waited for it. She glowers and he continues, “who happens to be devilishly handsome.”

“Does she agree with that?” Peggy says, her tone answering her own question.

“ _Emphatically_.” Howard leans back against the headboard, folding his hands behind his head.

Peggy walks close enough to grab the vodka from where it's resting in the bend of his crossed leg and says, “Frankly, that sounds doubtful.” Standing there next to the bed as he looks up at her, she takes a dainty swig of what he knows is some truly goddawful vodka.

As she hands the bottle back with a slight grimace, he shrugs. “Granted, she has high standards.”

She turns away.

“How... will the mission go, I wonder?” Peggy says, changing the subject but rolling her eyes at him over her shoulder, because she knows she left an easy opening.

“I don't know.” Too easy!

Js always gave her trouble for some reason. Usually she ends up only remembering one word:

“Jesus, it's drafty in this room.” She tugs her coat back on and sits down on the room's one chair.

He lifts the blanket on the bed beside him and bounces his eyebrows with perfected smarm. “...Keep warm over here, with me?”

She narrows her eyes, “Let's not.”

“Man lives in hope.”

“Never going to happen.”

He pauses at that and raises his eyebrows. “ _Oh_ , I'm not going to sleep on the floor.”

She responds with an arch look, “Perhaps, perhaps not, let's see how you behave.”

“...Question! For you.”

“ _Really?_ ”

He nods, “Supposing I keep to my side of the bed...?”

“Tell me more,” she says.

Stymied for a moment, he is forced to change the subject or lose. He mutters, “Undercover work is overrated.”

She smiles in triumph at the subject change, “Very few are suited to it, I'm afraid.” But the smile disappears as she realizes what comes after –

His victory is practically guaranteed. “Where are we meeting our contact?”

Silence stretches out, and Howard watches as a frustrated frown slowly overwhelms her usual composure. He wiggles deeper down on the lumpy mattress like it's the plushest bed at the Ritz and smiles contentedly.

Peggy starts rifling furiously through her suitcase, and Howard watches in bemusement until she pulls out a map and brandishes it victoriously. She marches back over to the bed, shoves the map in his face, and says, “X marks the spot.”

He looks down at the map, where there were, in fact, several Xs drawn all over, and then he looks up at her.

He's never seriously thought about it himself, really, and he likes to think he's built up a tolerance, but at the moment she looks just alien enough to be completely disarming. Her eyes are dark, hair tumbling out of the plain scarf still tied over her head, and her lips, devoid of the bold lipstick she usually favors, are curved into a triumphant smile. Howard looks at her, and he feels sort of wryly wistful.

He is used to ignoring that feeling. “You've done well, but do you really think you can finish this?”

Peggy exchanges the map for the bottle once more. “Zero chance of failure,” she says and toasts him with flourish.

–

They wait until nightfall and then head out once more into the city. The tavern they are heading to is near a new housing complex adjoining the Kuibishevskii district, where over 25 young people have disappeared in the past two months.

A sheet of wind cuts down the street and through Howard's rough-hewn overcoat. He hunches his shoulders and thinks bitterly of his coat from home – long, double-breasted wool with a truly beautiful silk lining....

“I could get used to wearing a scarf like this,” Peggy says, sounding brisk and energized from the chill. “Keeps my hair from flying all over the place, snug on the ears.”

Howard's too cold to muster a response, and so they walk in silence until they're in the right neighborhood.

“Remember to keep your cover at all times, even if you think no one else will overhear. Our contact doesn't know we're Westerners. ”

“Then how did he become our contact?”

“ _She_ was sending letters to a Soviet officer in Berlin. All we know is that a British asset somehow got a hold of them. MI6 declined to share more details, but they did share the reports about the missing people.”

“And Zupan turning up proved too much of a coincidence, got it.”

The bar is in a log building with carved shutters that sits on the street corner as the only source of warmth and light, with raucous laughter spilling out of the doorway every time it opened. Peggy shoots him a look, and they sidle closer together like lovers before entering the bar.

Inside is a mass of battered tables and chairs, all full of men shouting and thumping and stamping. On another day in another place, Howard would have liked to join in and spill some liquor. But the men here are strange to him from the clothes on their back to the words coming out of their mouths.

“How will we know her?” He asks Peggy in a low tone.

Her reply is in Russian and accompanied by a warning glance, but she speaks slowly enough that he can understand. “Her name is Nadia Petrovna Mikhailovich. This is her bar.” She moves along the edges of the rowdy room, and he trails after her.

There are two people behind the counter of the bar, a man who looks like he could crush Howard's head with one hand, and a young woman – Nadia Petrovna. She has long brown hair braided tightly away from her face and lines already forming at the corner of her eyes. From laughter or sadness, Howard couldn't guess.

Peggy rests up against the counter and looks to Nadia to catch her gaze. When the woman approaches, Peggy leans forward and says something quietly to her that makes the woman jerk back slightly. She looks from Peggy to Howard in a sharp glance. Howard stands straight-shouldered and bland-faced at Peggy's shoulder.

“You're _frontovichka_?” Nadia asks. Howard has no idea what that means, but Peggy nods. She has that careful expression of her face that he only sees when someone is asking about the war. Peggy starts to talk to Nadia, and Howard realizes that she must be telling her the story they'd crafted to explain themselves.

They'd spent the five days on the train memorizing their covers. They were Anton and Margarita Turov, newly married after they met while stationed on the German front – him with the engineers, she a battle medic. They were demobbed only two months previous, and instead of returning to the countryside, they had come to Irkutsk to attend the State University and make a life for themselves.

Howard was rather taken with this story, this alternate life of his. He'd gone to Princeton University, made his first half-million before he'd even graduated, was lauded amongst colleagues for his genius, but there was something undeniably appealing about the simple and pure dreams of Anton Antonovich Turov.

“Anton's going to be a scientist,” Peggy finishes up, and Howard clues back in by straightening up and nodding in agreement. To his surprise, they both laugh at him.

“He only came along for one thing,” Peggy sighs in affectionate dismay. Nadia shrugs in understanding and produces two glasses and a bottle of vodka.

“You must miss this,” she says to Howard as she hands him a full glass.

He feels the jolt of nerves that always accompany being addressed in an unfamiliar language, that second where it's all gibberish before clicking. Then he falls into character.

“Of course in Germany we had their beer and what pretended to be spirits, but no,” he takes a hearty swallow of the clear liquid and says into the potent exhale, “nothing compares to real vodka.”

“I'm sure DmitriPetrovich hates it there,” Peggy says, eyes wide with warning that slides into commiseration as she looks back to Nadia. It takes Howard a moment to remember that Peggy is supposed to have known this Dmitri in East Berlin.

“Then why hasn't Mitya returned? What's left of his unit already came back, and we need him here. There are... strange things going on, ever since the compound was built.”

“We've heard,” Peggy bent her head, furtive. “You mean about the missing children?”

Nadia's eyes flash, “I mean my missing brother.”

“Dmitri Petrovich? But he – ”

“No, my other brother. My _little_ brother, Alyosha.” All at once Nadia's expression crumples just enough to reveal her emotions, a searing mix of terror and worry. Nadia looks around the bar before leaning in, “He was taken three weeks ago. From this very bar.”

–

Three hours after they left, they return to their room in silence. Nadia had told them all she knew, describing a man who delivered supplies to the compound in the warehouse district on the edge of town and who liked to tell stories of how much the science men working there trusted him. He hadn't been in the bar, but she had exhorted them to come back the next night. He would talk to Anton, she told them; he was a vain, blusterous man and could not resist bragging.

“How am I supposed to approach him and get him talking?” Howard says once in they're in the room again. Peggy is washing up in the closet-sized washroom a few feet away from the bed.

His coat is thrown into the corner and he is sitting on the bed, stripped down to his undershirt but loathe to put his shirt back on. It's already starting to smell a little, and he doesn't have a spare. He couldn't understand it; they both had brought just one suitcase, but Peggy seems to have managed to pack at least twice as much into hers.

As if to demonstrate the point, Peggy returns to the main room wearing a truly hideous high-necked nightgown and thick socks. Her hair hangs around her face, slightly damp from where she's washed. Howard wonders if she would have ever allowed Steve to see her like this and finds himself completely undecided about both the answer and his feelings about it.

Peggy reaches into her suitcase and pulls out a deck of cards. “Nadia says he plays cards on Wednesday at the bar. So it's simple: you'll play him.” She hands him the deck and then sets about combing her hair.

“Poker?” He says, hands moving automatically to shuffle the cards.

She hesitates. “No, uh – Svoyi Koziri. Probably.”

Howard looks up from the cards and gives a small, baffled shake of his head. “And... how do you play that?”

She twists to squint at him through a curtain of tangled hair, “I believe it's similar to whist?”

He puts the cards down. “And how do you pay _that_?”

“I'm trying to remember, just – be quiet.” She tosses her comb back into her suitcase and sits down cross-legged on the other side of the bed. She picks up the deck of cards and starts dealing them. Howard turns on the bed so he's facing her, a mirror image of her pose.

There they sit in the kerosene glow, Anton and his Margaritka: intimate, domestic, unattractive nightclothes and slightly ripe bodies. As she frowns in concentration down at the arrangement of cards, he contemplates the thought that this might be the least erotic thing he's ever done with a woman on a bed.

Two hours later, when she's relaxed and propped herself up against the headboard, flushed from the built-up heat of the room and crowing over beating him so soundly, he retracts that thought.


	2. Chapter 2

VI.

“How did you learn Russian, anyway?” Howard asks her the next morning. They're sitting on the edge of the bed, picking at a plate of vaguely breakfast-like foods without much enthusiasm.

Peggy tears off the crust of her toast, remembering. “I had a roommate at Oxford, Svetlana. Her father was a member of the Duma back in the days of the Provisional Government.”

“So they were, what, exiled?” Howard guesses.

Peggy nods. “They lived in Berlin, but moved to England when things started to get... tense. Svetlana trained as a nurse with me for a time. She was… a very competent woman.” Svetlana had the darkest sense of humor that Peggy had ever encountered; it had gotten her through more than one bleak shift at the military hospital when she was too upset for the more frivolous distractions preferred by many of the other young nurses. Thinking about it, Peggy marvels at how long ago it all seemed.

Howard asks, “Where’s she now, did you keep in touch?”

Peggy comes out of her memories and blinks at Howard.

“She was killed in an air raid during the Blitz.” She stands and brushes the crumbs from her nightgown. “We should get dressed, I want to scope out Kuibishevskii before tonight.”

Howard doesn’t respond except to grab his shirt from where it hangs off the back of the chair.

–

The Kuibishevskii district is so busy and full of milling bodies and vehicles that they have no problem blending in while getting oriented with the area.

The march of progress is highly evident in the layout of the streets; haphazard old wooden buildings stick out here and there amongst the grid of newer industrial workshops. The business of the street involves a startling mixture of technologies – one moment Peggy has to pull Howard out of the way of a trundling truck, only to nearly back into a horse-drawn cart. They duck down a side street to get away from the traffic and end up behind a warehouse with stacks of crates waiting to be moved inside.  

“Let’s hope that man tonight has some useful information,” Peggy says. “I get the feeling that searching for anything around here would prove to be a daunting task.”

“A waste of time you mean,” Howard says, before bending over and inspecting one of the nearest crates. He points at the lettering stamped on the side and asks her, “What does this say here?”

“Nothing. It’s just an address.”

He shrugs and looks around at the number of identical crates. “Well, let's see what the Soviets are manufacturing _en masse_ nowadays.” He sets about working on prying it open before Peggy can tell him not to bother. The lid comes loose with a clatter to the street and they both lean forward to peer inside. The crate is full of folds of white fabric.

Peggy reaches over Howard’s shoulder to feel it between her fingers.

“Tea bag fabric,” she pronounces.

“Tea bag fabric? Well, now I understand why the boys at the State Department are so worried.”

Peggy suppresses a smile and looks around the street. “I'm sure some of these warehouses have more damning... wares.”

Howard climbs back to his feet, dusting his trousers off. “Right, I'm sure we'll look around and find that Soviet production of tinned biscuits remains at wartime levels.”

“Howard.”

“No, really, I'm going to wire George Kennan straightaway.”

 

VII.

Sergei Aleksovich **,** their intel subject, is almost astonishingly convivial in nature. Ensconced at a corner table and watching the action in the middle of the bar room, Peggy wonders if Nadia has misjudged the man out of some instinctive communist suspicion of the cheerful.

Sergei Aleksovich's table roars with laughter just then, the man himself settling back in his chair – and there, a sly gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. Someone else goes up to the bar for the next round. Sergei Aleksovich has not paid for a single drink since they arrived two hours ago.

Across the table from her, Howard is having a slight fit of nerves.

“You need to relax,” she tells him – in Russian, and he stares at her from across the table without comprehension. She reaches over and puts her hand on his. From all outward appearances it's a loving gesture, but what she's doing is measuring the tremor of his hands, the beat of his pulse at the base of his wrist. She looks him in the eye and squeezes his hand until it stops shaking.

They lean forward as if to kiss over the table – eyes dark and soft, Soviet sweethearts – and she says quietly in English, “If they start to get suspicious of you, I'll just shoot someone and we'll leave. All right?”

Over in the center of the room, Sergei Aleksovich starts to call for a card game and the room fills with the groans of heavy tables being moved. Howard breathes out a shuddering breath and nods.

They stand up and make their way over to the gathering crowd. Peggy looks at the unlabeled scuffed glass bottle sitting on Sergei's table, the clear liquid inside very possibly a product of homemade ingenuity, and slides closer to Howard. She leans her head against his and, under the guise of nuzzling his cheek, whispers in his ear:

“I believe this particular field of espionage is your forte.”

Howard doesn't react except to grin jovially at the men and step forward to grab a chair.

–

Howard isn't the best player, is in fact barely a proficient player, but the men seem to take a liking to his mannerisms. Where he can't speak, he makes up in facial expressions and gestures, and the end result is almost seamless.

Peggy stands behind his chair, one hand on his shoulder and a tolerant expression on her face. Nadia in the back has succeeded in spreading the whispers of their story, so her presence beside Howard is not really questioned except for a few raised eyebrows.

Howard finishes his drink and lifts his glass for another with nary a wince.

Forty-five minutes into the game, Sergei Aleksovich starts talking.

–

Later, they slam into the side of the hallway, arms around each other and breath coming fast.

“I think you might have overdone it a little, Howard,” Peggy says before adjusting her grip on his waist and reaching forward to unlock the door to their room. They stumble inside the darkened room, and she props him up against the wall before going to double-check that the corridor outside is empty and locking the door behind them.

She turns back to him and is met with a kiss.

Howard kisses like it's not the first time, as if they'd just been interrupted and he's getting back to the matter at hand. It lasts for one brutally startling moment – his hand cupping her face, his mouth moving slowly over hers, the memory of vodka in his breath.

Acting on instinct and not ready to examine it, she shoves him away hard and then plants her feet in case he needs more convincing.

It isn't necessary. He stumbles back and, unable to regain his balance, slams up against the bedside table. Sagging down, eyes wide – shocked at himself, maybe – he desperately slurs, “ _Sorry_ – sorry, Peggy, sorry – ”

Which is just about the worst thing he could have said.

It's not that Peggy never thinks of it, of course not. With the end of the war, it seemed like everyone was thinking of little else; Peggy has a friend who worked on codebreaking, a Bletchley Park girl. According to the last letter she received, Susan had gotten married and become a housewife. Just like that. The letter was cheery enough, but – no, Peggy can't even imagine.

Howard is listing against the bedside table, blinking slowly up at her. The pitiful display somehow makes her angrier than anything else could, and she grits her teeth.

“Just go to sleep, Howard,” she says, turning away.

–

The next morning, Howard doesn't remember the kiss – or half the night, for that matter. Peggy becomes aware of this when he shakes her awake with a frantic urgency, bleary-eyed and stinking of spirits.

“What happened? Did we get it, what happened?”

It's still dark outside the room's window. Howard is sitting up on the other side of the bed, bare-chested and sweating like it's the height of summer. The alcohol, Peggy thinks. He hasn't thrown up, which says something slightly disturbing about his habits back home.

“We got it. Maybe.” She says, rolling over to face the window and tugging the blanket higher over her shoulder. “Compound outside the city on the other side of the Angara. Now go back to sleep, we're on the move tomorrow.”

He goes back to sleep, or not. Peggy doesn't know, because she's already sinking back into her own fitful dreams.

Peggy and Howard are playing blank cards in a bomb shelter as Harry James plays over the military radio in the corner. Steve's in the next room which is somehow also a smoky bar, resplendent in a pressed army uniform next to a rumpled and dead-eyed Sergeant Barnes. Peggy steps up, and she and Steve waltz as the radio cuts into static and over to a wretched voice telling her that he has to put it down, that it's his choice. They swan back into the shelter, past Howard now alone at the card table, gin spilling all over the paper as he sketches out formulas feverishly, muttering, “Did we get it?”

The radio cuts out, and an atomic light blossoms through the door.

They got it.

Boy, did they.

 

VIII.

Three kilometers south of town, across the frozen Angara River and along a narrow dirt road, they find a cluster of buildings surrounded by a tall wooden fence. It looks more like a prison than a fortress, designed to keep something in rather than people out.

They are huddled down just before the crest of a hill overlooking the site, knees crunching on the unforgiving ground. Permafrost, right, Peggy thinks. Still hunched over, she turns around, away from the buildings, and starts digging through her bag.

They need to dry off as they wait for nightfall and an opportunity to move. Peggy takes a breath, feels the freezing tang of the cold air in her nose, a smell almost chemical in nature. The hike hadn't been too bad, but even a little sweat could put them at risk for hypothermia.

She hands Howard a length of fabric, and he understands immediately, taking it and reaching under neath his coat to pat down down his chest.

After they are both a little dryer, they sit down shoulder-to-shoulder on the fabric and wait.

–

There are no guards watching the entrance or the spot on the fence where Peggy scales over. She opens the gate just far enough to let Howard in, and then they start their search.

There is something disquieting about the compound: the ramshackle buildings out in the isolated countryside, the lack of security, the pervading silence of the grounds – it all speaks of a sinister complacency.

They easily duck as a guard slouches ahead of them, and head to the nearest building, a metal-sided shed. The door is locked, so Peggy bends to pick it as Howard stands watch.

“Who's set-up do we think this is again?”

“The Министерство Государственной Безопасности,” Peggy says absently. When Howard looks at her askance, she clarifies, “The MGB: state security, intelligence, counterespionage. They're the new NKVD.”

Howard nods, still facing out at the rest of the compound, “MGB, NKVD, OSS, SSR – _this_ is why I won't hear about us picking a different name. At least S.H.I.E.L.D. has some style.” He waits for a response, doesn't get one, and continues irrepressibly, “And I'm starting to think we should hire someone to post a bulletin for all the new agencies and reorganizations.”

“We do, it's in the intelligence briefs that you don't bother reading.” She regrets speaking as soon as she's done; it'll just encourage him.

“I don't read them, Peggy, because it's not necessary for my job. I'd just get distracted by the insane mess we're dealing with. Christ, what a zoo. Almost makes you miss Hydra.”

At that, Peggy does look up at him, and he adds lightly, “Or not.”

She reaches up with one gloved hand and gives a hard twist to the lock, breaking it open.

The shed inside is empty but for a table with papers, a stack of large oblong canvas bags, and the kid in an animal cage.

–

“Is she dead?” Howard asks from behind her.

Peggy peers through the dim lighting down at the girl, who is dressed in several layers of rags and curled up, head resting on her forearm. Her lips look faintly blue, but she's breathing.

“No.” She turns away to the stack of papers on the table. A schedule, a docket of orders, a sign-in sheet for a supervisor. Several of the sheets have doodles in the corner, like someone was bored and had nothing better to do while watching the kidnapped child than draw stick figures.

“Anything useful in there?” Howard asks, still not approaching or even really looking at the cage.

Peggy takes a moment and is carefully bland when she speaks. “Whatever they've been doing here, it didn't work out how they wanted with her.” Her meaning the girl chained up like a stray dog. “These are orders and a shipping schedule, she's being sent to a labor camp down in Bratsk.”

“Jesus,” Howard begins, and then the girl suddenly lunges up from the floor of the cage. “Jesus!”

Howard takes a step back and bumps into Peggy, and they both stare as the girl gnashes her teeth at them, eyes narrowed and mean. She growls out something fierce and rattles the cage with torn and bloodless fingers.

“What's she saying?”

“Nothing,” Peggy says, “She's not _saying_ anything.”

The girl's eyes and voice are empty of words, left only with an animal's panic as she continues to throw herself against the chain links of the cage.

“If we don't find a way to quiet her down, someone's going to – ”

And that's when the guards arrive.

 

IX.

Howard is no stranger to waking up in an unknown location, but he generally has a little more fun on the preceding night than he recalls having the last time he was conscious.

Headache's the same, though.

He groans a little and levers himself up into sitting. He's in a large open-bar cell with at least ten others, and he can see another cell across the walkway, similarly full. The floor of the building is just compacted ground, frozen dirt that leeches the heat from his bones; he can't feel his legs. As he looks around, several young faces look back, too wary to be curious.

Christ, where's Peggy?

“Вы старый,” one of the older boys says. He repeats it and Howard, thinking desperately, finally translates: _you are old._

He doesn't reply to the boy, but grips the freezing cold bars of the cell and pulls until he's half-standing, half-leaning against them. His legs tingle uncomfortably. He looks around again with a more collected eye and notes that everyone is young – the oldest among them maybe fourteen. Their captors have split the group by sex; the other cell is full of girls.

“Pe – Margaritka?” He calls across to the other cell, just barely remembering to use the right name.

There is no reply, so he turns back to the one that had spoken to him, a dirty, solemn-faced boy who couldn’t be more than twelve.

“Женщина?” He can't remember the grammar, the proper construction use, so he just repeats like a damn fool, “Моя женщина?”

But the boy only draws back, confused and silent. Howard tries calling over again but soon gives up. Peggy could be still out there, she could be on her way to get him out of here.

Or she could be dead. He remembers the guards and their guns, could probably feel the lump on his head if he cared to reach up for it.

It is the first moment on the entire mission that he's been on his own. He visualizes himself like it would display on their big wall map back in New York, a single blue peg alone in a warren of red, not a single ally in a thousand mile radius. It's a suffocating thought.

He thinks of Peggy again and slams his palms hard against the bars of the cell. And since the children likely already think him mad, he drops all pretenses and screams murder into the cold dark room.

–

“Howard!” A shock of English and on its heels an Englishwoman appearing on the other side of the bars. “Howard, thank goodness.”

He couldn't have been out that long, but seeing her is still a longing relief, still makes him want to grab her tight and not let go. Howard reaches through the bars and then stalls out for a moment before touching her shoulder. Peggy's smile wavers, concerned.

“You're not dead. That's good.” Howard tries a grin, but it feels wrong, stilted. “What happened?”

“You were knocked out almost immediately. I took care of the guards, but others arrived before I could get to you. I had to hide.”

“That's good,” he says again, meaning it. “Now, rescue me, please?”

She shakes her head and bends to pick the lock, brow pinched in concentration. “You should never have come into the field.”

Howard is generally inclined to agree with that statement, but he can't help but point out, “You're the one who just broke our cover.”

“What? Oh,” She looks around for the first time and takes in the staring faces. “Damn it.”

“It's okay, you were relieved to see me,” Howard says, allowing himself to pretend for a moment that the added flush on her face is embarrassment and not just the cold.

Peggy ignores him and starts talking to the children in rapid Russian that Howard loses track of almost immediately.

The cell door pops open, and Peggy moves to the other one. A girl asks her a question, and she shakes her head, responding. Howard makes out, “No, no time,” and he starts to worry again.

The concern grows when Peggy digs around in her pocket and pulls out a set of keys, which she tosses to the girl. Peggy says something else and points to the open door of the building, and the children all hesitantly start to shuffle out.

“I really hope there's another truck out there for us to use,” he says as she turns back to him.

“If there wasn't, would you begrudge those kids an escape?”

Howard rolls his eyes and they start away from the door, going deeper into the building. “I wouldn't say no to them waiting up for us, maybe tell them to keep the engine warm...”

“That would rather defeat the purpose of the story I told them,” Peggy says as they check both angles of a doorway before entering.

“Which was?”

“That this is an evil _Amerikanskaya_ _laboratoriya_ , and that we are Soviet agents here to destroy it.”

Howard is slightly appalled, “And they _bought_ that?”

Peggy shrugs, bizarrely unconcerned, “They're children. Who knows?”

The only other rooms they find deeper in the building are innocuous storage space and an empty office. Five minutes of searching turns up nothing but bare filing drawers and one tea-stained mug. It looks like the end of the line.

“People came through here, there's gotta be something,” Howard says, turning in place to study every inch of the room. “Did you find out anything?”

Peggy shakes her head grimly. “Only that Zupan left over a week ago for Stalingrad.”

“ _What_?”

“I know. He was transferred to a new project,” and then she says some in Russian.

“I don't understand, was that a name? Is that a place?”

“Well, that's all it said on the file,” she says. “Red Room, that's it.”

“And this red room isn't somewhere around Irkutsk.” Peggy nods in tired agreement and he says, “So, what, this operation is over?”

“No, the facility must still be active, it's still being funded – I saw a shipment calendar, and they're scheduled to receive regular supplies for at least the next three months.”

“What kind of supplies?” Howard asks sharply.

“Chemicals, looked like. And a high volume of them – _hm_ ,” Peggy looks at him thoughtfully.

He nods, mind moving fast. “No visible storage tanks outside, and the insulation in this building is completely inadequate for any kind of proper lab work,” he says, even as she's realizing aloud:

“There must be a lower level. An underground lab.”

They find the switch behind one of the filing cabinets and within a minute the middle of the floor has retracted to reveal a set of stairs.

“After you,” Howard says, politely extending an arm to gesture her ahead.

“Always the gentleman, Howard,” she says sardonically and moves forward with her gun up and ready.

 

X.

The lab is empty but for a man fast asleep on a tiny cot in what looks like a supply closet. They quietly close the door on him and, after a moment, lock it.

“Nice to know all scientists are the same in some respects,” Peggy says quietly as they turn to survey the lab. It's a dark, low-ceilinged room with counters and equipment in the middle under weak and flickering fluorescent lights.

“ _I_ never fall asleep in my lab,” Howard says.

“No, I suppose not. You just don't sleep at all.”

They split up, Howard heading to the nearest workstation and Peggy to the paper-covered desks shoved in the corner. Quiet reigns as they search. Every few minutes something overheard creaks and they pause, listening intently for any sign that they were about to be interrupted.

Howard gets out his camera, specially designed by himself, and starts taking photos of schematics and formula write-ups. He becomes so absorbed in this task that the touch on the back of his neck startles him.

Peggy is grim-faced and holding a sheaf of papers. “They're not shutting the operation down, they're moving on to Phase II.” She swallows, “They're going to test their product on a whole neighborhood.”

Howard looked down at the diagrams in front of him. “They're putting it in the water?”

She just looks at him, “What does it do, can you tell?”

“When it works, you mean?” He says, thinking about the girl in the shed. He hasn't asked what happened to her after he was knocked out by the guards. He waves at the glassware on the counter. “I'm not a chemist, but from the work here and from what Zola told us... my best guess is they're working on some kind of memory drug. That's all I can say until I get one of our guys to look at all this.”

She nods briskly, “Take pictures and work you can, then we're destroying the lab.”

This is it.

This is the moment he knew was coming from before they even left New York. Howard pauses tellingly and feels more than sees Peggy stiffen next to him. By the time he's turned to look at her, she's set her shoulders and watching him with puzzlement and growing anger.

She says, “We have to stop them.”

He says, “ _Well_ – ”

“Howard.” She is looking at him like he's a stranger, and he loses his patience.

“Peggy, there’s no time. We saved the kids, that’ll have to be enough.”

“There's no such thing,” Peggy says, unmoving. “According to _this_ ,” she brandishes the papers clenched in her fist, “we're just sending these kids back to be experimented on along with their families.”

Howard doesn't look at her but turns and continues snapping pictures of the stack of documents on the counter. Peggy is silent for a long a moment, and when she speaks again her voice is low and sick with comprehension.

“This is why you came on the mission, isn't it. You wanted to make sure I didn't destroy the lab.”

Howard sighs, turns to her again and says, “Destroying the lab is not _good_ enough, don't you understand that? This isn't like the Tesseract, some – singular, unknown technology they'll have no hope in replicating. They'll keep working on this somewhere else until they get it, but at least here we can get a look at their system and start collecting data. The next war is going to be won by knowledge of the enemy's arsenal – by intelligence networks.”

“I _know_ that, Howard – ”

“ – And you know good as I do that ours are a joke right now.” He throws his arms out in frustration, gesturing to the miserable lab around them. “To set them up, we have to preserve and monitor – we can't go blowing up everything in our wake.”

Peggy's lips thin. “Does Chief Dooley know about his?”

Howard sighs, “No, but he's a practical man. I'm sure he'll agree with my reasoning when he sees the first decrypted data wave.”

Peggy is silent for a long moment. Then:

“We need to blow something up.”

Howard wants to throw his camera to the floor. “ _Damn it_ , Peggy – ”

“They'll be suspicious,” Peggy continues steadily, “if we free the children but leave everything perfectly intact. We need to make it look like it was done by someone who didn't understand what they were looking at.”

Howard looks at her searchingly for a long moment. Her expression is shuttered, completely devoid of emotion, but her gaze is resolute.

He slowly begins to nod in agreement and says, “Help me with their communications system, and then we'll do that, okay?”

They document the encryption codes at the comm unit in the corner and then set about torching most of the buildings on the ground above before leaving through the front gate. They stand once more on the hill overlooking the compound, firelight bathing their faces as they watch walls fall down and the remnants of the compound staff that had been previously asleep run about frantically.

The mission is a success, but Howard feels something like failure settle in around his shoulders.

–

Howard hadn't been there when Steve took the plane down into the ice.

He'd gotten the call from Colonel Phillips; Peggy had been occupied elsewhere, he doesn't know where. And afterwards, as the nation mourned Captain America, he hadn't been with Peggy to mourn _Steve._ He was already leading a search expedition in the Arctic, refusing to believe that it could all just end like that. By the time he returned, she was off on clean-up missions with the Howling Commandos.

When he finally saw her again for any real length of time, the grief had set, and they didn't really speak about it. Then Hiroshima went down, and Howard felt he _couldn't_. See, in his death, Steve had morphed irrevocably into Captain America, and that wasn't an allegiance Howard had any right claiming for himself anymore.

Ideals were shed for pragmatics; it was the only way forward, for Howard.

 

XI.

In the cold grey of the next day’s dawn, they leave Irkutsk and the people of the city to their fate.

It takes them a few days longer to get out of the Soviet Union than it did to get in, since they don't want to risk using Anton and Margarita Turov again. They rail skip, hiding in and among the cargo cars. They have only a little food to last the journey, so they mostly go hungry, curling in close to each other for warmth and exchanging sleep in fitful watches. It is the longest journey of Peggy’s life.

She watches the passing scenery through the bumping slots in the train car and thinks. She wonders if she’ll ever look back and remember that for a very short time in ’46, she thought things could be better. It was a hopelessly naive thought, but she couldn't blame herself for falling prey to it. War and sacrifice and apocalyptic bombs – these things made it very easy to forget the plodding reality of the world.

On the morning of the fourth day, she rouses from her thoughts and glances over to find that Howard is awake and watching her.

“Can’t sleep?” She asks.

“Too cold.” He speaks simply, not complaining like he once would have; Russia gets to everyone in the end unless it kills them. “What’s bothering you?”

Peggy doesn’t answer at first, not sure how to phrase it in a way that Howard would understand. “It’s only,” she says finally, “this isn't what I thought we would be doing.” She doesn't mean the mission, exactly.

“Isn't it?” Is all Howard says.

–

They go their separate ways as soon as their feet hit American soil.

 

XII.

Howard sees her again about a week later. They're both back in their respective uniforms; he's tailored and trimmed, and she's fully armed in heels and scarlet lipstick. Anton and Margaritka now only exist in their slightly too-thin faces, in the fading bruises and lingering ache of chilled muscles.

They arrive at the elevator from different directions and exchange smiles, too faint to be fake but too polite to be warm. They turn as one to face forward as the elevator closes, and Howard studies their fuzzy shadows on the burnished metal of the doors.

When they arrive at the S.H.I.E.L.D. command floor, the doors open to reveal Arnim Zola, who appears to be waiting for them. He stands off to the side in a lab coat, his hands folded neatly in front of him. Howard sees Peggy's hands curl into fists, so he steps forward first.

“Dr. Zola, I thought I was scheduled to speak with the science division later today?”

“And we're looking forward to it, Mr. Stark,” Zola says. “We have much to discuss about the data you recovered in Siberia. There is potential there.”

“You know you're not authorized to try and replicate any of that work, Dr. Zola.” Peggy steps out from behind Howard and stands with military straightness to look coldly down at the doctor. She glances at Howard briefly. “S.H.I.E.L.D. is not and never will be in the brainwashing business. Are we clear?”

Zola offers a polite smile, “I did not mean to insinuate that we would use such methods. I only wanted to give compliments to a mission well done.”

Howard knows that Peggy has too much class and control to spit back the venom she is undoubtedly storing, but she manages to convey a lot of the emotion in one wintry look before turning and continuing down the hallway without Howard.

After a long moment, Zola turns to Howard and speaks in a candid tone, “Mr. Stark, I am aware my presence here has set some of you ill at ease, but I want to assure you that I intend to work very hard.”

Howard looks thoughtfully after Peggy and lights a cigarette. “Oh, I don't think that anyone doubts that.”

The scientist waves a hand, either to make a point or clear the sudden cloud of smoke from his face, Howard couldn't say. “And I want to also assure you that regardless of any... moral lapses I may have had in the past, whatever you may think of me, you have to understand that the future I was striving for during the war – well, it was not so different than what we're trying to build here, now, with S.H.I.E.L.D..”

Howard is really enjoying his cigarette, and he grins gamely around it, “I don't know if they included this in your debriefing, but genocide isn’t really one of our top priorities.”

Zola suddenly steps closer, eyes entreating behind his round glasses, “What we were seeking is a world at peace, Mr. Stark. A world insulated from the terror of bickering nations and the whims of corrupt men. International security and protection – is this not what S.H.I.E.L.D. aims for?”

“Right.” Howard will never admit it, but Zola's gaze unnerves him. And he may disagree with Peggy about the Zola's usefulness, but damn if he was going to pal around with the man. “Well, if that's your goal, then S.H.I.E.L.D. has a place for you.” He looks down the hallway again to where Peggy had disappeared, “Just... stay out of Agent Carter's way. She was close to – to Captain America, you see.” He turns to go but pauses. “And stop with the talk about Hydra. That's over – the _war_ is over. It's time to build something new.”

Zola inclines his head and spreads his hands. “That's all I want.”

Howard leaves him with a perfunctory smile and patronizing slap on the back. He goes into his lab and works for a few hours. He attends several interminable meetings. At dusk, he shuts his office up for the night and heads out into the city for dinner.

He and Peggy just missed Thanksgiving, and though there's a distinct chill in the air, people on the streets of New York look cheerful as they walk home.

It's the season for brandy and women in luxurious furs, for windows lit warmly by candles and strings of light. The days are growing darker, but that just means they have to turn the lamps on earlier. The year is coming to an end, and Howard finds himself looking forward to the next one and all the possibilities it will bring.

–

_You wear a flag on your chest and think you fight a battle of nations. I have seen the future: there are no flags._

\- Johann Schmidt

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/References:  
> 1\. The shard of green glass that Howard mentions is a direct reference to atomic bomb testing in the desert. Heat+sand=glass. I remember reading about a scientist who was so annoyed with a politician's stance on the atomic bomb that he sent him a piece of the glass, and of course the politician freaked out because he thought it was radioactive. Good times. 
> 
> 2\. Frontovichka = front line girl
> 
> 3\. I've taken all sorts of liberties with post-war Irkutsk, the history major in me is so ashamed, I can't tell you. I had a whole paragraph devoted to the extent of paved streets in the city before I came to my senses.
> 
> 4\. Most of Svetlana's biography was kind of directly stolen from [Vladimir Nabokov.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov#Emigration)
> 
> 5\. Some of you might have spied the shout-out to [The Bletchley Circle.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bletchley_Circle)
> 
> 6\. You can find me over at sackett-and-katz.tumblr.com


End file.
